


Under the Same Sky

by JMoonrise



Series: Let the Light In [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, Love, MSR, Post-Episode: s11e10 My Struggle IV, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 07:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14256420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMoonrise/pseuds/JMoonrise
Summary: It's not an ending, but a beginning for all of them.





	Under the Same Sky

A fall breeze settled over us as we stared up at the stars. The night was fairly clear. The silence between us was comfortable, and I enjoyed the solace his company brought.

Throughout the years, we went through our ups and downs. We weren’t always a couple, but we were more than the friends we paraded ourselves around as. Neither of us was willing to move our relationship forward. We wasted a lot of time.

I glanced over at his silent, contemplative profile. He was older, with some grey pushing in around the temples. He was fit, more fit than he was when we began working together twenty-six years ago. “Do you think about it?”

“About what?” He knew what I meant. It was a discussion we’ve had multiple times in the last few weeks.

I brushed a loose strand of hair out of my eyes. “The choices that brought us here. I mean did we ever have a choice.”

Normally the cacophony of crickets and other nocturnal creatures pierced the quiet nighttime air, but it was colder than usual for the time of year. “Well, I don’t know Scully. I would say we did have a choice. We chose each other over and over again, and while I don’t have any regrets, it does sadden me to think of all the loss in our lives.”

I pondered his words in my head. All of this was set forth into action because of a quest made by a twelve year old who witnessed his sister’s abduction. Mulder never gave up hope his sister was out there somewhere until he was forced to confront the truth. The disappearance of his sister from his family’s life destroyed them, and his parents never recovered from her loss. They formed him into the man I’ve come to love.

I wondered for a longtime who he would be if it never happened. Would he have joined the FBI? Would we have met? They’re all unanswered questions because there’s no way of knowing. What the Syndicate did set Mulder onto his fate.

“Do you regret meeting me?” I’m not sure where the question came from, but it’s something I’ve thought about recently given everything that’s happened.

He turned over and stared at me silently. His hazel eyes were dark but not broken. He fixed himself in my absence. “It’s usually the other way around.” He smirked. “I don’t though. Without you, there wouldn’t have been any validation to my work. You gave my life meaning again when I thought I would fall into the darkness a thousand times over. Did I ever wish you would leave to save yourself?” He sighed wearily and rubbed his face tiredly. “All the damn time, but selfishly I was happy when you never did. You continued to stand by my side despite what it did to your life. No one had ever done that before.”

My hands cupped my stomach. I thought about the life currently forming inside of me. I was showing sooner than I had before, but it wasn’t unexpected. I was older, and it was a second child.

Neither of us could fully appreciate the news in the weeks following Norfolk. Everything was messy and unknown between us. We hadn’t fully settled back into a relationship. I wasn’t even sure he wanted a child. We’d had a conversation during a prior case, but it was during a vulnerable time for me.

I was reminded of my aging status and my barrenness. Miracles rarely come along more than once.

“Do you believe him?”

His sigh punctured the still air. “To be honest, I think everything out of the man’s mouth is complete and total bullshit. He knew for years what happened to my sister, and it was punishment for my father they took her in the first place. Even though I share genetics with him,” he paused to shudder at their biological ties. “He’s not my father. He’s a man on an ego trip. We have no way of knowing who William’s true father is now that he’s no longer here.” He moved onto his back and glanced up yet again.

He told me once about his obsession with the stars and how they held the answers to the universe. Thirteen year old Fox spent his nights on the roof of his house staring out in the vastness of space wondering where his sister was and if she would return.

“Since we know the gender, do we want to name her after someone?” It was a topic I had yet to broach. Neither of us was in the proper mindset to discuss our miracle pregnancy especially before I visited a doctor. We had a nice, long list of people between the two of us.

“Would it be horrible of me to say no?” I shook my head. “I don’t want our child to have to live up to the memory of a ghost. Many of the women we would be naming her after never had the chance to experience life at the fullest. I mean Melissa lived, but she never had children or a significant other.” I sucked in a harsh breath at her name. “My mother never recovered from Samantha, and Jesus, Samantha never had a real life.”

He was right and I hated it. Faceless men had stolen so much from us over the years.

We were at the age where one would be expecting retirement, yet here we were expecting a child. His hands slid over mine and we held our child together. “I wouldn’t mind Margaret as a middle name or Katherine, but I think she should have her own first name.”

“When I was girl, I named all of my dolls Isabella. I thought it was a pretty name. A girl in my pre-school had the name, and from the on, I always used it.”

A small smiled formed on his lips. “I can’t imagine you playing with dolls. I heard all about the BB gun.” I elbowed him in the ribs. “Isabella Katherine Mulder,” he tested our the name. There something right about it.

“I like it.”

“Do you think William would?” His face was pensive.

I studied the lines of his face in the darkness. Many of them I knew well. Some of them formed in my absence, and others were new. We’d been through so much together, and it amazed me how we were on the other side still standing.

For so long, I blamed him for all the wrongs and hurts in my life. It was easy to attack him because he didn’t defend himself. He took all of my anger and frustration and wore it. He never begrudged me either. The day I left, I watched him as I backed out. His eyes were resigned, but his expression guarded. He didn’t try and stop me.

I didn’t want to hate him. It wasn’t his fault. Melissa was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had the chip on me when Duane Barry found me. Someone decided to use my ova to create Emily, a little girl who never lived. Other people made decisions around us.

Mulder was abducted and returned dead, and then thrust back into a world that moved on his absence. So many things, the results of the actions of others.

According to some, even William was a choice by someone else. Yet, I always wanted him. He was my son. I carried him for nine months and raised him for most of his first year of life. I mourned his absence for sixteen years. Despite Skinner’s words, he wasn’t an experiment. He was a boy pushed into an adult conspiracy.

I slid my fingers through his and enjoyed the warm of his hand. “I think he would. He’s out there somewhere, and he knows we love him.” It would have to be enough for now.

“If I asked again, what would your answer be?”

 


End file.
